Entrepreneurs don’t have office hours

I don’t know about you but I find it really hard to stifle my laugh when someone asks me what I do 9-5. The reality for most entrepreneurs, trainers, and baristas like me is that we don’t have office hours. Worse yet, we have almost no benefits.

You hear about all these “be your own boss” narratives and they’re great, don’t get me wrong. But it’s hard work living paycheck to paycheck, or finding affordable health and dental insurance. In the wise words of Black Star, “They say it’s all good, let’s make it all better”.

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With less and less of us in traditional employee positions, more of us are working on contract to earn a living. Some of us work on contract with big organizations, while others of us are self employed or freelance workers with many jobs and clients. We need to make sure the rules are fair for all workers.

Sometimes companies will force workers to be classified as independent contractors when by all definitions they are employees. This can mean less pay, lack of workplace benefits, no vacation or overtime pay, and being ineligible to access programs like EI.

For those that are self employed and working freelance, there are very few protections and benefits that can be accessed.

This makes work precarious when it doesn’t need to be. Government needs to recognize the changing nature of work and extend protection and benefits to contract workers.